A Week On Skye - Rubh' an Dùnain

After yesterday's rest, and the fact that it wasn't raining, it was time to go walking again so we headed down to Bualintur at the bottom of Glen Brittle. I still couldn't persuade Lorna to venture up the Black Cuillin, and it was a bit cloud covered anyway, so we decided to do the seven or eight mile or so trek out along the south side of Loch Brittle to Rubh' an Dùnain (Point of the Dun) and back.

The walk starts for the camp site and is pretty much a straight wander along one of two possible paths, both paralleling the shoreline, until you get to Creag Mhór, a smallish hill. When you get as far as the largest stream and if it's too high to m/66/2cross easily, just wander uphill or downhill, depending on which path you're on and you'll find a handy bridge.

The Black Cuillin from Creag Mhór

We had lunch on the top of Creag Mhór, which gives some good views out over the headland and back towards the Black Cuillin. Also, from up there, you can see the gash across the headland called Slochd Dubh, which runs all the way south to the sea. The next step was to drop down to the wall on the edge of Slochd Dubh and cross over that to reach the path going round Carn Mór and on to Rubh' an Dùnain. It soon gets pretty boggy and the path disappears but if you keep heading for the little Loch na h-Airde, it gets easier. On the way down there, you should come across the ruins of Rhundunan House, once the seat of the MacAskills. It looks to have been a once fine sized house but there's not a lot left now.

At the far side of the loch is a small, neolithic chambered cairn, where the bodies of six adults were excavated in the 1930's. It's not a bad bit of building work for being over 5,000 years old. The point is supposed to be a great place to watch seals, basking sharks and whales but nothing surfaced today. Mind you we did get a view of Rum but it wasn't that clear, being cloudy today. The only wildlife we did see were Small Heath and Meadow Brown butterflies, there were lots of these but the breeze kept them pretty mobile and they were hard to get photos of. Oh, and a Burnet Moth!

The return journey was pretty much a case of retracing our steps but we did vary it by cutting round the edge of Camas a' Mhurain to find the huge stone steps leading up to the top of Carn Mór. From there we headed towards Creag Mhór again and back by the other of the two paths (just to vary things a little).

Rubh' an Dùnain and the Isle of Rum

The round trip is about eight miles and there a welcome shop in the camp site where you can buy some morale boosting chocolate after that.

Home tomorrow, sigh!